Amphitheater Management the Core Issue
The document – the Complete Tulare Amphitheater Investigation – alleges city manager Marc Mondell knowingly guided the city into an agreement with Spade Entertainment that would ultimately require the use of city funds to subsidize concerts at the amphitheater. It also cites other instances that the authors claim demonstrate a lack of fiscal responsibility on the part of city leaders.
Alberto Aguilar, spokesman for the group, said the document is intended to educate the public about city spending in general and specifically about the $842,000 approved by the city council to support the amphitheater.
“The city is losing money,” Aguilar said. “The city’s the one that’s having to use our funds to subsidize the revenues from the lack of ticket sales.”
The document – signed by Aguilar and fellow Tulare residents Lidia Huerta, Grace Calderon and Gloria Frasquillo – claims city leaders failed to investigate Spade Entertainment’s performance in a similar role in the city of Rocklin, CA. Mondell was Rocklin’s assistant city manager in 2019, the year Spade contracted as the city’s concert producer.
Spade Entertainment is owned by Todd Speelman.
“The structural differences between how the city of Rocklin protected its municipal finances and how the Tulare City Council handled its agreement with Spade Entertainment highlight the core of the local controversy,” the document states.
The investigator and author of the report, Aguilar said, was Huerta.
The group is not alleging a crime has been committed.
“We’re not accusing anything of being illegal,” said Aguilar. “It’s just poor management.”
Report, Public Records Don’t Agree
According to Huerta’s investigation report, Rocklin eventually ended its relationship with the company ST Productions, which was also owned by Speelman, due to poor ticket sales at Rocklin’s Quarry Park. The report states the city was forced to issue a request for proposals (RFP) to replace ST Productions in order to “save” the city’s general fund.
“That arrangement ran into continuous financial friction regarding ticket sales eventually forcing Rocklin to pivot to an open RFP model to salvage its general fund,” the report said.
However, the narrative recounted does not appear to match public records from Rocklin. ST Productions received its original contract to produce concerts in Rocklin in 2019. That contract was amended twice, including extending the contract until December 31, 2023. Notably, concerts at Quarry Park were suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
In February 2022, the city’s agreement with ST Productions was amended again to “offset city expenses” and “recover direct city costs.” Documentation provided to the Rocklin City Council by administrative analyst Jeff Scanion described a positive relationship between ST Productions and the city. He noted a “successful first season” in 2021 and called the city’s relationship with ST Productions “mutually beneficial.” By 2021, Mondell had left Rocklin and was working in Tulare.
The only money assigned by the Rocklin City Council to ST Productions appears to be a one-time, interest-free loan of $100,000 to cover deposits when booking acts.
Speelman’s ST Productions and Rocklin ended their relationship when the contract terminated at the end of 2023. Public records from Rocklin – including the minutes of council meetings and RFP award documents – do not show that ST Productions or Speelman submitted a proposal to continue working with the city.
The rigorous RFP drew only one qualified applicant, Ineffable Music Group, which was awarded the management contract.
False Alarm in Unfair Florida Fire Tax Accusation
In its investigation into Mondell’s past, the citizens group claims there was “major litigation and legal disputes connected to his departments” during the time Mondell was employed by Ocala, Florida. Originally hired as a planner, Mondell would eventually become Ocala’s assistant city manager, serving from 2012 to 2014, after working as the city’s economic development director.
The report attempts to connect Mondell to a “fire tax” imposed by Ocala on city utility customers. The tax would eventually be found unconstitutional and overturned. The decision forced the city to refund $80 million.
However, when the illegal tax was imposed in 2006, Mondell was the city’s planning manager.
“I had nothing at all to do with that fire fee,” Mondell said. “I was in another department.”
The fire fee was finally challenged in 2014, and was overturned after an eight-year court battle that ended in 2021. Mondell said he was never consulted about the fire fee or involved in the litigation that ended it.
“I wasn’t the assistant city manager then,” he said. “No one asked me (about the fire fee).”
The Coalition for Transparency / Fiscal Accountability / Save Our General Fund is also critical of a zoning decision the Tulare City Council made in December of 2024. It allowed cold-storage and warehouse facilities to be built “by-right” in light and heavy industrial zones without first performing an environmental review.
The zoning change was challenged legally, and on April 24 the Tulare County Superior Court ruled that Tulare had illegally bypassed the California Environmental Quality Act. The coalition termed this a “major legal challenge” and a defeat for the city. However, the lawsuit is ongoing, as the city filed an appeal in July.
Mondell: I Am Not a Crook
While the coalition’s report says Mondell’s experience and education “made him an attractive candidate,” they claim the city council failed to dig deeply enough into Mondell’s past and into his relationship with Speelman.
“The Tulare city council did not thoroughly review the long-term success or financial realities of Marc Mondell’s previous municipal projects,” they wrote.
The report is also critical of the city’s new emergency homeless shelter and its “Tulare first” approach that prioritizes housing for people with ties to Tulare. The report characterizes this as a potential lawsuit for the city, but does not specify why. Aguilar said if the city provides a shelter, then it automatically assumes responsibility for the safety of those who use it, presenting liability issues.
“What if someone gets attacked?” he said.
The coalition did not provide Mondell with a copy of its report. Members of the city council were also not informed, and Mondell said there’s little information in the report that he hasn’t already talked over with the city council.
“I don’t know that there’s a lot there for them to discuss,” he said. “A lot of it we’ve discussed over the last five years.”
Mondell denies he’s been underhanded or failed to disclose pitfalls in the proposals he’s brought before the Tulare City Council.
“The primary point they’re trying to make is that I’ve been dishonest and misleading to the council,” he said. “I don’t think that’s true.”
Mondell is adamant he has no special relationship with Speelman and Spade Entertainment. While the coalition called for audits of the Adventist Health Amphitheater, Mondell said audits have already been completed, and he’s frustrated with the criticism.
“There’s no way for me to convince people I’m not a crook and in a business deal with Spade,” he said. “We have auditors who go over this all the time. Just this year we got another clean bill of health.”
Trying All the Options
If Mondell was in a financial relationship with Speelman or his companies, the potential fallout would be greater than any benefit he might receive, he said. His professional certifications would be voided, ending his career in civil service.
“I lose those certifications and I’m out of a job and become unmarketable,” he said. “It would be incredibly stupid for me to do that.”
And in the meantime, the numbers aren’t as bad as the coalition’s report says they are. The report lists the concert series first year’s local attendance rates (6% to 10%) and chides Mondell for his claim other similar projects pulled up to 25% of attendance from the local population.
Updated metrics for the second year of the concert series place local attendance at 40%. The series is now in its third year, which is the length of time Mondell said is required to “figure it out.”
“We haven’t had enough time to try all the options,” he said. “We need three years to try different genres of entertainment and find out.”
To that end, the city has contracted with the Roox Agency to bring Hispanic musical acts to Zumwalt Park. The park will also host Christian musical acts in the upcoming season, and the amphitheater recently hosted a reggae music festival. Attendance, Mondell said, is up to 2,400 guests on average.
He also said Spade entertainment is seeking national-level sponsors to help balance the books.
“We’re right on track with everything I thought we’d do, except our ticket sales and revenue,” Mondell said. “If we’re successful with getting sponsorships, we’ll take care of covering costs.”